An Ominous Feeling
“That little bat-faced bastard who looks like a fox has some nerve!”
“Don’t go starting trouble for no reason, Han Sora.”
“I’m so sick of this. I’m so sick of this! Acting like he’s somebody important when he’s just some alchemist scrub who makes potions! How dare he… how dare he lecture me?! Who does he think he is?”
“I told you not to cause any incidents. This isn’t the Tutorial Dungeon. We may have been kings there, but here we’re just newcomers who arrived yesterday. However you look at it, the smartest thing we can do is keep our heads down.”
“Newcomers, sure. Newcomers being courted by the big guilds.”
“Nothing’s confirmed yet. Until the contract’s stamped, nothing’s set in stone. They’ve only made offers so far, and there’s still the training camp evaluations and the demonstration event. Some guilds even said they’d run separate entrance tests, so stop worrying about everything and focus on your own training. I understand how you feel, of course, but….”
“Oppa, you know exactly what that bastard said in class, don’t you?!”
“Well… being looked down on from above didn’t feel great, but he didn’t seem like there was anything wrong with him personally. It sounded like practical advice, so I didn’t take it badly. Our class wasn’t like yours, so it didn’t have that oppressive atmosphere, but… the other instructors seemed pretty courteous too….”
“Of course they would be. He’s Instructor Jung Hayan’s boyfriend, isn’t he? Naturally they’d treat him politely.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah. That fox-faced bat bastard is Jung Hayan’s boyfriend… that flying sword has to be something Jung Hayan made for him too. She’s one of the top mages in the capital—what, could she not make a single sword? That rat-faced fox bastard. He must’ve caught himself a woman and turned his life around, I swear.”
“Well….”
“I can’t stand it, Oppa.”
“Do whatever you want, I guess. I don’t really care, but it’d be best if you didn’t drag us into it. For some reason, I’ve got a really bad feeling about this.”
“About what?”
“That person, Lee Kiyoung. I tried to look into him, but there’s nothing on him at all. The instructors seem to be holding their tongues too.”
“The Red Mercenaries instructors don’t answer personal questions anyway. You must be imagining things.”
“Well… I’d like to think so too, but it feels like they’re deliberately keeping information under wraps. Anyway, I don’t know. You look into it. Honestly, I don’t have the bandwidth to care right now. Just thinking about the entrance test is making my head feel like it’s about to split open.”
“Honestly. You were talking such a big game in the Tutorial Dungeon, saying we’d be together forever….”
“Situations change. You should stop obsessing over weird stuff and just focus on the entrance test and the demonstration event. Everyone else is swamped with that too. It’s time you grew up.”
“Whatever. I’ll handle it myself.”
“Just don’t cause trouble.”
“I said I know!”
It was an irritating situation, to say the least.
“Together forever,” my ass….
So my assumption that the comrades I’d spent time with in the Tutorial Dungeon would help me had been nothing but wishful thinking.
I hadn’t exactly expected much, but I hadn’t thought they’d react this coldly.
Idiots, all of them….
It was only natural that I felt stifled all of a sudden. They were too stupid to make proper use of this opportunity.
Why are they all lying down like obedient little dogs?
However I looked at it, there was no reason to bow this low.
Of course, I understood wanting to join a major guild. Getting to start off safely under their protection was easily ideal. But they weren’t even paying attention to how they were being treated right now.
Raid parties were treated differently from survival parties, fundamentally speaking.
On the surface, there didn’t seem to be much difference, but it was a fact that we’d been receiving various special favors.
The reason was obvious.
They were just as desperate as we were, and they were doing everything they could to recruit us.
It couldn’t be helped. That was reality.
Unlike the survival party, who had spent their time trembling in the dungeon and wasting away, we had risked our lives and, in the end, won what we wanted.
If you considered that the guilds and clans here wanted to recruit more strong people and more talented people, then acting a little aloof was important too.
If the fourteen of us had stayed united and negotiated together, we might even have gotten a better deal than this.
There were plenty of guilds and clans that wanted us anyway.
Right now, we’re the ones with the leverage!
Idiot people.
Changryeol Oppa wanted Blue… and Hyeja Unnie wanted Black Swan, I think…. The rest are either Red Mercenaries or… ugh….
Without question, if the entire raid party had lodged a complaint or stated that they had no intention of joining another guild and negotiated from there, the situation would be better than it was now.
And that alchemist wouldn’t have been able to toy with us like this either.
“Damn it….”
Thinking about the fact that I’d pissed myself made my face burn, naturally.
When I yanked open the classroom door in irritation, I could feel the attention turning toward me.
A few women were already hurrying this way. I couldn’t even remember all their names, but I was used to this kind of scene.
They want to get in good with the right people.
I was someone who could be called part of the privileged class here.
“Unnie? Did it go well?”
“No. The oppas don’t seem very interested in this. They’re all busy preparing for the entrance test and the demonstration event…. It’s infuriating.”
“The entrance test? So it’s Red Mercenaries after all?”
“There’s Red Mercenaries, and Blue too. There are other guilds and clans as well, but… ah! Right, you girls wouldn’t know that yet.”
“No, we can’t hear anything about it.”
“There’s also the Magic Guild and Black Swan, and all kinds of others. The mid-sized guilds actually seem to have pretty decent conditions….”
“Ah. So where are you going, Unnie?”
“Well… Red Mercenaries made me an offer, and it was just a hint, but… the Magic Guild did too, though I’m not sure…. I haven’t ruled out Blue either….”
“If you’re going to keep developing as a mage, Blue doesn’t seem like a bad choice. Instructor Jung Hayan is there, after all.”
“I haven’t met anyone from Blue yet.”
“What? Really? Then, could it be because of that person?”
“Probably….”
That alchemist was yet another reason he got on my nerves.
“It must be deliberate, right?”
“Well… the odds are pretty high.”
“So he must have a lot of influence in the guild….”
“Influence, my ass….”
“Hey… there’s Yoo Ahyoung, right?”
“Who’s Yoo Ahyoung?”
“The one with the big chest….”
“Oh… her?”
“I’m not certain, but I heard Blue is courting her.”
“What?”
“Apparently she even met with the Blue guild master.”
I clenched my fist.
It felt like a fire was rising inside me, again and again.
That idiot who’d spent the entire Tutorial Dungeon running for her life had gotten an offer to join Blue, while I hadn’t. It was absurd.
I had a rough idea why this was happening.
That bastard is getting revenge.
Probably because I’d acted arrogant when we first met. He was making it painfully obvious that he was deliberately excluding me. It was almost ridiculous how blatant it was.
I was certain there was something going on behind the scenes that I didn’t know about.
He should at least wear a guild badge or something. What a pain in the ass….
Before I could stop myself, the curse slipped out.
“Ugh… shit. This is seriously ridiculous.”
“It really is. If it’s true, isn’t that unbelievably ridiculous? Why would they make a recruitment offer to her? Her scores weren’t even good. Her physical training seemed okay, I guess, but….”
“Isn’t it obvious? He’s up to something dirty, no question. This whole idea that he has influence in the guild is bullshit anyway. The reason Lee Kiyoung is acting like a king here is all because of Instructor Jung Hayan… and it’s probably the same with Blue. He’d be a headache there too. A guild that gets swayed by one little sparrow? If they make me an offer, I’ll turn them down.”
“Really?”
…
Of course that was a lie. There were plenty of other major guilds that weren’t bad, but if you asked me which guild I really wanted to join, it was Blue.
There was the possibility that I could learn several things from the genius mage Jung Hayan, yes, but the real reason I thought Blue was a good choice was the background that mid-sized guild had.
The alliance with Red Mercenaries.
It was an obvious reason. The advantage of entering the rising Blue and seizing real power there was greater than joining Red Mercenaries as some low-ranking guild member.
Because their scale was smaller, the support that would be poured into me would also be a little more concentrated.
This is completely screwed.
As soon as the thought occurred to me that Jung Hayan might have already told Instructor Jung Hayan about this, I started to feel anxious for no reason.
I need to do something….
That was when the classroom door suddenly swung open.
Of course my head turned that way.
In an instant, the stragglers clustered around me rushed back to their seats and sat down, waiting for the instructor in front of us to begin speaking.
Instructor Jung Hayan had entered the classroom for her lesson.
It was a little different from usual, since she normally came in greeting everyone as she arrived.
The moment she returned, she didn’t even glance around the room and instead opened her mouth carelessly.
“Take your seats. We’ll skip the greetings and start class right away.”
“Yes.”
“Like last time, we’re going to practice writing with mana. Anyone who still can’t feel mana should move out separately.”
“Yes, Instructor.”
“I-I don’t have time, so move quickly.”
“A-ah, yes!”
Unlike the last class, the atmosphere had turned strangely cold, and it stood out for no good reason.
She ignored the students who hurriedly sat down and kept staring at me, which bothered me even more.
Her appearance looked a little more haggard than usual too, and the fact that she didn’t look especially well made me wonder whether something had happened.
Her obvious irritation naturally made me think of that fox bastard.
I was certain everyone else in the room was thinking the same thing.
He definitely wrapped it up in his own convenient way and reported it to her.
I had no idea why those two, who were so unsuited to each other, were meeting at all, but that wasn’t the important part.
Even while class continued, the atmosphere remained incredibly sharp.
She wasn’t openly throwing a fit, but….
“A-are you idiots? D-don’t do it like that!”
Or:
“I could do this from the beginning… I already explained it, didn’t I…? Seriously… idiots.”
Or:
“Why don’t you understand? It’s frustrating…. Everyone should be able to do this.”
Or:
“Idiots. You’re all idiots… seriously stupid… really stupid….”
…those kinds of mutters kept slipping out under her breath.
The class, which had at least been somewhat warm and lively before, became a bed of nails in an instant.
The difference in temperature from the lessons I’d heard recently was so extreme that it was downright bewildering.
The content of the lesson itself seemed a little less friendly too.
Considering that a minority were still practicing how to sense mana, there was no way the others could properly handle a lesson that even a mage found difficult.
What really caught my attention, though, was the gaze the mage in front of me kept sending my way.
I didn’t know why, but the look made my skin crawl, and I couldn’t help focusing all my attention on it.
I’d never even tried writing letters in the air with mana before, let alone heard of such a training method.
Still, I thought I had to live up to expectations, and in fact it felt like I was barely managing to keep up.
I need to beat them with my skill.
As they say, talent always rises to the top. If I worked hard enough, people would eventually recognize my worth.
This is what I have to do.
I had to keep proving I was special. Only then would I be treated properly.
In the end, I bit my lip and slowly began to shape my mana, letting letters hover in the air.
As I focused my mana, trembling all over because I felt like I’d collapse the moment I relaxed, I could feel Instructor Jung Hayan’s gaze slowly settling on me.
Huh?
Maybe it was just my imagination for a moment, but somehow she looked displeased.
No, more than that—her expression was complicated.
I wondered whether I was doing something wrong, but my mana was definitely still holding steady.
It felt like she was thinking about something very hard.
What is she thinking about? What… is she worrying over?
Silence spread across the room in an instant, and I swallowed reflexively.
That was when I saw Jung Hayan’s mouth curl upward, her expression full of sudden realization.
W-what the hell?
That grin held an emotion I couldn’t explain.
Gooseflesh erupted on my arms, and a chill ran down my spine.
Cold sweat broke out on its own, and even my jaw started to tremble without my meaning it to.
Her expression still carried that creepy grin, and while it made me feel uneasy, I didn’t think the weird reaction in my body was because of that face alone.
What is it… why is she doing that…?
Maybe it was just my imagination, but her eyes seemed strange too.
Eyes that I couldn’t understand.
“A-ah….”
“W-well done, Han Sora student.”
“A-ah, yes. Thank you.”
“You’re actually pretty good compared to the others here…. What a relief…. You’re not stupid.”
“Th-thank you.”
“Han Sora student, you might even do better with private lessons… heehee….”
“A-ah… yes.”
“If you don’t mind, would you like me to teach you a few more things after class?”
It was only natural that I thought she’d recognized me.
She wouldn’t say something like this to just anyone. I should be happy, even proud.
When I glanced around, everyone was staring at me with envious eyes. The looks that said I was different, the looks that said they admired me, were pouring down on me.
I should say yes.
Of course I should nod.
It was a chance to receive private tutoring from a genius mage who might only appear once in several centuries.
But for some reason, the answer wouldn’t come out of my mouth.
“I-I said I’d teach you, so why aren’t you answering?”
When I lifted my head, I saw that one corner of Jung Hayan’s mouth was twisted into something grotesque.
“I….”